


The Kids (Aren't) Alright

by Halogalopaghost (Lartovio)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Sherman Pines is a good grandpa, Sort of Adoption AU, Stan's POV, rated for language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26245609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lartovio/pseuds/Halogalopaghost
Summary: There's exactly one person in this dimension who can make Stanley Pines do something he doesn't want to, and that's his big brother Sherman. When his brother asks "Stanford" to keep Dipper and Mabel for a few weeks, he hesitantly agrees. Then he falls in love with them, and a few weeks turns into the entire Summer. The entire Summer turns into...well, the rest of their lives.
Relationships: Ford Pines & the twins (eventually), Stan Pines & Ford Pines, Stan Pines & Sherman Pines, Stan Pines & the twins
Comments: 77
Kudos: 215





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! This fic is super self-indulgent, let me say that first. It's my way of trying to rectify the fact that Mabel and Dipper seem sort of ambivalent toward their parents, and vice versa. I mean, Weirdmageddon was broadcast on the news for goodness' sake, why didn't anyone try to reach them?  
> The first few chapters are going to chronicle how Stan came to have the kids for the summer, his first meeting with them, and a few other canon events. When that's over with, the real fun starts of Stan and Ford realizing that Dipper and Mabel's parents are kinda.....inattentive toward their kids.

As much as he knows he isn't a night owl, Stan never really considered himself a morning person either. He’s a  _ sleep _ person--as in, most happy when  _ asleep _ . The phone ringing at ungodly hours of the morning, as far as he’s concerned in the moment, is one of the quickest ways to make him very cranky.

“S’better be good,” he grumbles, throwing blankets off his legs. He stumbles down the hall and grabs the ancient wall-mounted phone off the receiver, shouting “What!”

There’s a second of silence on the other end, Stan swears he’ll wring Soos’s neck if this is another butt dial call.

“Stanford?”

Oh, of course. Of-fuckin-course. It's Sherman. Stan clears his throat and leans against the wall, sighing and putting on his best “Stanford” voice. “Sherman, why in the world are you calling me at—” he shifts to check the clock in the living room, “six in the morning?”

“I’m sorry for the hour, Stanford. It’s rather urgent. You remember Mabel and Dipper?”

His back straightens.  _ Remember _ ? Of course he remembers. He  _ adores _ them, even if he doesn’t do much but send birthday cards and a little trinket around Hanukkah. “Did something happen to them?”

“No! No, the kids are alright.” Sherman sighs over the phone, and Stan empathizes with the exhaustion in it. “You see, Marlene took a fall last week--”

“Is  _ she _ okay?”

“Yes, Ford, everyone’s alright, will you please let me finish?”

He winces at the slip of Shermie’s tongue. It happens every now and again, even after asking his family to let him go by ‘his’ full name, but it still hurts every time. If Sherm even remembers, it doesn’t show in his voice.

“Marlene fell. She’s alright, but she’ll be in physical therapy for a few months, and she needs help getting around. I told Aaron that I wouldn’t be able to watch the kids this summer, but they dropped them off this morning anyway.” He punctuates the sentence with a sigh. “I can’t do both.”

Stan rubs a hand over his face, and even though he’s pretty sure he knows what his big brother will say next, he says, “Sorry, Sherm. Don’t see much I can do about it--”

“Stanford, just for a few weeks. Until July, at most, just until Marlene has healed up a bit.”

“Sherman,” he grumbles, “it’s the height of tourist season. I have--” the portal, which is as dead and unresponsive as ever. “I have projects going, things that can’t wait.”

He grouses something on the other end, and Stan hears Marlene murmuring something soothing. When Shermie speaks again, it’s with very thinly veiled frustration. “It’s been thirty years, Stanford. I haven’t seen you since Pa’s funeral, and neither have the kids. They want to get to know you--”

“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit.” That sounded a bit too much like Stanley, not Stanford.

“He’s not coming back,” Sherman says with an air of finality, and Stan physically recoils from the phone. “And I’m not getting any younger. Neither are the kids, and I think it’ll be good for all three of you to spend some time together.”

Stan doesn’t respond for a minute. He wants to scream into the phone,  _ HE IS, HE IS COMING BACK, HE’S NOT DEAD I DIDN’T KILL HIM, HE’S COMING BACK I JUST NEED A LITTLE MORE TIME-- _ But that’s not what he meant, and Stan knows it. He rubs at his eyes and wishes he was still in bed.

It was thirty years as of February. He spent the anniversary alone, in the basement, with a case of very cheap beer and that god-damned journal. The cloud over the house hadn’t lifted since then. In fact, it only got darker as his birthday-- _ their _ birthday--drew closer. Maybe Shermie’s right. Maybe he really isn’t coming back. But the twins...well, it’s been a few years, but they had been a contagious source of warmth and laughter at that funeral. Ma couldn’t stop smilin’ at ‘em.

Stan turns to face the wall, lets his forehead fall against it with a thud, and sighs. “Just a few weeks?”

“Just a few weeks.”

Ah, to hell with it. He can handle a couple’a kids for a month. Right?

* * *

When Soos and Wendy arrive later that morning, Stan’s pacing a rut in the floor of the gift shop.

“Whoa,” Wendy says, putting her things down on the counter. “What’s got into you, Mr. Pines?”

He stops, facing them, with his hands clasped behind his back. He moves them to cross over his chest. “Either of you know where I can find a couple’a twin beds--cheap?”

“Uhhh, no?”

“The laser tag place that used to be the mattress store might have some old ones,” Soos says. “A kid threw up in there last week, it was gnarly.”

“Ew,” Wendy says, elbowing Soos in the gut.

He laughs. “The little dude puked  _ everywhere _ . Why do you need them, Mr. Pines?”

Stan pulls his fez off his head and turns it in his hands a few times. “My, uh, niece and nephew are gonna come stay for a couple’a weeks.”

Wendy stared for a moment, then burst into laughter. She slips behind the counter and sits heavily on her stool before she finally stops. “Yeah right. You, taking care of kids?”

Stan throws a glare at her, feeling indignation rise in his chest. It’s not  _ that  _ ridiculous.

“Oh shit,” Wendy says, eyes widening and turning to Soos. “He’s serious.”

Stan crams the fez down on Soos’s head and jabs a finger in Wendy’s direction as he makes for the door. “Watch the language.” The finger turns toward Soos. “You’re in charge ‘til I get back.”

The gift shop door shuts so hard that the windows shudder.

Wendy and Soos look between each other, completely awash in disbelief.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan waits at the bus stop for his niece and nephew to arrive, with no small amount of anxiety and second thoughts.

The last time Stan felt this nervous, he was standing in the DMV with Ford’s social security card in one hand and the title to the Stanleymobile in the other. The car couldn’t very well belong to a dead man, and he wasn’t ready to give it up at the time. Still isn’t.

That had worked out fine, he tells himself. No reason to be nervous for this--it’s not nearly as serious as identity theft. It’s just two kids. Ten years old? No, they have to be at least eleven now. Thirteen? Shit, what year were they born?

It’s fine! It doesn’t matter. Kids between the ages of ten and thirteen are all the same, he’s pretty sure. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine. He tugs at the collar of his jacket. It’s just two kids. How bad can he really mess this up?”

_“I’ll put them on the next bus out,”_ Sherman told him _._

_ “Bus? Alone? Isn’t that, like, a bad idea?” _

He laughed. _“Just wait until you see them again, you’ll understand. Dipper is very mature for his age.”_

Stan knows what that means. It means the kid has a stick up his butt and a hard time making friends. He held out hope that Mabel will still be her vibrant, talkative self.

So he sat at the bus stop for the last ten minutes, waiting for a bus that’s supposed to arrive any moment. Every time he hears a car in the distance, he jumps up and waits there with his 8-ball cane between his hands. He grabbed his eye patch on the way out the door, too. For extra dramatic effect.

But the last three cars weren’t the bus, and Stan is getting a little tired of the wait. Maybe Sherman changed his mind at the last minute, and Stan just hasn’t been at the house all day to hear him call. He really does need to get some kind of portable phone like Soos and Wendy have, but they’re so damn expensive.

Twenty minutes in, Stan is ready to get in the car and drive back home. The little gremlins aren’t coming, and he bought barf mattresses for nothing. Then he hears a car--a loud one, this time, and his heart rate picks up again.

He stands, smoothing out the tie around his neck and buttoning his jacket. As if ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen year olds care about the state of his suit. As the bus crests the hill, his stomach does a backflip.

“They’re just kids!” He tells himself again. Just kids, just kids. They don’t bite. Wait, when do kids stop biting? Okay, they might literally bite but metaphorically, he’s in the clear. Maybe. Fuck, can’t they just get off the damn bus already?

The driver, to his surprise, is actually the first one out of the bus. He puts down two hefty suitcases, then gets back in. Only then do the two gangly kids tumble out. They both look a little bit disoriented, and Dipper does not look very happy at all. Mabel’s still got those big brown eyes though, and she’s taking it all in.

The bus pulls away before any of them find words to speak.

Stan clears his throat. “Uh, hi! Kids. I’m, uh, your Great-Uncle Stan. You might remember me from that...funeral a few years ago.”

Mabel hooks her thumbs in the straps of her backpack and wrinkles her nose. “Great-Uncle Stan,” she repeats. Then she shakes her head disapprovingly, as if she doesn’t believe him. 

This kid hasn’t even been alive long enough to know who Ford  _ is _ , let alone tell Stanley apart from--

“That's a whole mouthful. What abouuuuut...Grunkle! What do you think, Dip-Dop? Grunkle sounds way better. With a  _ K _ .”

Stan chuckles, still a little nervous. “Grunkle. Good one, kid.”

She gives him a big, sincere grin, and he thinks maybe...maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm more or less calling this the "terrible parents" AU and basing it on all my personal experience with parents who definitely shouldn't have kids, but don't meet criteria as abusive or legally neglectful. I don't think this is implied in canon in any way, so the "canon compliant" bit is just to say that I don't change anything essential to the story. I'm just, y'know, ~embellishing~. Drop me a line and tell me what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids have already stayed longer than Stan thought they would to begin with, so why the hell he's so upset that they're leaving?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pbbbbbtttt I should have just titled this "TELEPHONE: STANLEY AND SHERMAN PINES EDITION"
> 
> Seriously, the next chapter ALSO heavily features Stan and Shermie yelling into the phone. Sorry in advance 😬

When Gideon takes over the shack, Mabel calls her mom for the first time all Summer. She sits in Soos’s kitchen with the phone pressed to her cheek and Dipper pressed against her side, and tries not to cry while she tells her mom what happened. Stan sits in the other room and pretends he can’t hear everything she’s saying, but he _can_ hear it and it all stings. He should have been able to stop him, he’s just a punk kid! But the little rat is always one step ahead somehow. 

His hearing aid screeches again, and he has to turn it off before he just flings it across the room. After a moment of consideration, he flings it anyway.

His general distrust of banks, which he’s now regretting slightly in hindsight, means that all his money is stashed away in the shack. In his sock drawer, in the basement, in the safes hidden in the walls, in locked filing cabinets in the room that had once been Ford’s. Meaning, ultimately, that he can’t afford to replace the hearing aid right now. He can’t afford to feed the kids, either. Or himself.

The hearing aid should be the least of his worries.

Dipper appears beside him, and Stan nearly leaps out of his seat. “Kid! Are you tryna give me a heart attack?”

He frowns for a moment, then notes the absence of Stan's hearing aid.

“I chucked it.”

Dipper turns and scans the carpet, retrieves the thing, then sticks it forcibly back in his uncle’s ear. Stan supposes he deserves that, but he also wonders if the kid knows he _can_ hear without it. Enough to converse face to face, anyhow.

“Mom wants to talk to you,” he says. His face is solemn, even more so than his regular resting expression, and Stan’s heart falls.

It feels like walking to the gallows as he trails behind Dipper and takes the phone from Mabel. The twins hesitate just a moment, so he makes a shooing motion. He just can't bear to have this conversation with them in the room. 

He talks to their mother for only a few moments before realizing she’s not talking about coming to get them, she’s talking about sending them back to Shermie. He dials Shermie instead.

“Stanford,” he answers, rushed and distressed. “What in the world is going on up there? Aaron just messaged me that you’ve been--evicted? Are the kids alright?”

“The kids are fine,” he says with a wince. It’s not completely true, but it’s not a lie either. “I, uh, I think it’s time to send ‘em home though. I got some feud-type stuff going on here, a k--ah, _someone_ stole the deed to the house and these backwater hick cops don’t seem to care that it has my name on it. I’m gonna have to get a _lawyer_ involved.” He shudders at the very thought.

There’s a pause on the line. “Do you want to come down with them? I’ll buy the bus tickets online.”

He actually thinks about it for a moment. When that moment is over, his stomach churns with anger and embarrassment. That portal is still in the basement. He feels close now, closer than ever before, and he isn’t sure if it’s because of the boost from the kids or if it’s just his stupid hopeful mind playing tricks on him. Whatever it is, though, he knows he can’t just walk away from Ford’s life--in many, many meanings of the phrase. 

“No. No, I can’t Sherm. Thanks anyway.” He sighs and pushes his glasses up to rub at the pinching headache between his eyes. “If...if you wouldn’t mind getting tickets for the kids, though…”

* * *

Stan finds the second journal.

Not only does he get to keep Dipper and Mabel, he also gets the Shack back, he watches Gideon’s arrest, and he gets the second journal. He's on top of the fucking world.

Only when Stan’s tucking the kids in, much later that night, do any of them think to call Shermie. Mabel gets the emergency cell phone out of her backpack and turns it on to find many missing calls from her grandparents. All three of them sit on Mabel’s bed as the twins tell Sherman why their bus didn't even make it out of town. With all the dramatic flourish they can muster, they recount the long tale. Sherman isn’t mad, thankfully, but he does ask for Stan to call him back once the kids are settled.

Stan gives each kid a big kiss on top of the noggin before leaving the room, even though Dipper shoves him away and pretends to be grossed out. Words just can't begin to describe how proud he was of the kid. Protecting his sister like that, throwing himself in harm’s way...well, it was brave and heroic and everything Stan had tried to be in life, but he also told Dipper to never ever do that again because “you scared the hell out of me, kid.”

He hesitates outside the attic door, listening to the two of them breathe in the dark. Journal three— _I found them both in one day, holy fuck what are the odds, Ford just hang on a little longer I'm coming for you_ —is tucked under his arm and while his insides are doing backflips and setting off fireworks, the reality of it hasn’t quite set in. 

He puts his face in the crack between the door and its frame. “Kids?” he whispers.

“Yeah Grunkle Stan?” they whisper back.

“You sure you’re not ready to go back to Grampa Shermie?”

Mabel sits straight up in bed and he catches moonlight glinting off her braces as she grins. “We’re super duper sure.”

“Super _super_ duper,” Dipper adds firmly.

“Good, ‘cause I ain't ready to give ya back.”

The chorus of giggles, if it's possible, make him feel even lighter. 

On the phone in the kitchen, Sherman asks him almost the same one he asked the kids. “Are you sure you want to keep them? You can send them back whenever you’re ready, you know. Marlene is healing quicker than the doctors thought she would.”

Stan turns over the journal in his free hand and looks at his reflection in the gold embossing of his brother’s handprint. After thirty long, bitter years of the lies, failure after failure, countless nights lying awake and wondering if his brother was dead somewhere out in space… He knows he _should_ want to send the kids home. He should want to run down to the basement and get working on the portal right away, now that he finally has all three pieces to this maddening puzzle. He’s gotten a GED and a degree-and-a-half for this stupid piece of junk beneath his feet! He should want to drop everything and stay down there until he has his arms around Ford again, safe and sound. 

And that sounds great. Of course it sounds great, because it's his brother and he’s been working towards this for so long. But.

But then he thinks of the kids upstairs and the soft, soothing sounds of their breath in the dark. He thinks of Mabel sitting at the kitchen table, swinging her legs to a song in her heart as she adds the newest photos, puffy stickers, and macaroni interpretations to her scrapbook. He thinks of Dipper, gnawing on pens while he reads Stan’s old trig textbook _for fun_ and explains things Stan himself never quite grasped even after graduating with a bachelor’s in math and a master in theoretical physics.

Sherman is silent while he debates all this. He doesn't repeat himself or ask if Stan is still there, he just waits patiently.

All at once, it hits him that Sherman knew from the beginning what was going to happen. In his reflection on the journal, he sees his face twist into a wry smile.

“Ahh, leave me alone you old coot. You’ll get ‘em back at the end of Summer and not a day sooner.”

Sherman howls with laughter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel writes a letter to Grampa Shermie, telling him (with fully colored illustrations, mind you) all about her Summer adventures with her Grunkles. Plural. On a wholly unrelated note, Stanley Pines gets a phone call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok this is the last Shermie on the phone chapter for a while, I promise ^^'

Stan answers the phone in the kitchen with a calm “hello?” and immediately has to pull the thing away from his face.

“STANLEY PINES,” comes screaming over the line and for a hot second, Stan’s worried that something from three decades ago is coming back to bite him in the ass. 

“Wait, Sherm?”

“Don't fucking ~ _ Sherm~ _ me! Is it really you?”

He’s instantly sweating, mind racing. How in the living hell did Shermie figure it out? How much of this lie can he salvage? And now that Ford’s back, and wants his own name again...how much does it matter?

He clears his throat and answers in his best imitation of Stanford, “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“I swear to God, if this is Stanley and you're fucking with me, I'm going to remove your trachea through your asshole.”

Whoa. Stan hasn't heard language like that outta Sherman since the older brother left home. Something about telling Pa to fuck a cactus came to mind. His mouth was suddenly very dry.

“Is Grampa Shermie on the phone?” Mabel’s squeal came from somewhere outside of the home. He hopes it’s the back porch and not the roof again, and he’s proven right when two pairs of thundering footsteps rush him. 

“Tell me the truth, Pines,” Sherman said. It sounded like a threat, but there wasn't really anything explicitly  _ threatening  _ in the words. Just the tone and the lingering fear of the trachea-asshole situation. 

He gulped. Dropped the Ford voice. “Well, I have a really good explanation—”

“I fucking knew it! Stanley you are a dead man! Do you hear me? You're fucking dead! All these years I thought you were depressed or—or losing your mind, and it's just been  _ you _ !”

Stan’s jaw clenches. He’s put up with enough of this shit from Ford in the last week, he isn't about to take it from Sherman too. “Are you going to let me explain myself, or just assume the worst of me again?” he shouts. “‘Cause if this is gonna be another excommunication of Stan, let me save you the trouble and hang up now!”

Everything goes deafeningly silent for a moment. Marlene, bless her, is trying to soothe her husband in the background. Mabel and Dipper fled the room with their hands over their ears when the first  _ F _ sound formed on Sherman’s lips. Good, they don't need to hear this.

“I'm not accusing you of anything Stanley. I—I just got Mabel’s letter in the mail.” He lets out a long, tired sigh. “Is it really you, Lee?”

Anger gone. Just like that, something inside Stan’s heart snaps just a little. Hearing his own name in Shermie’s voice, in the present tense, he can't even begin to describe how warm and  _ alive _ it makes him feel. 

He gives a terse nod before he remembers, duh, Sherm can't hear a nod. “Yeah,” he chokes out. “It’s been me all along. But Ford’s back now, I fixed it, he’s not gone—”

“I know, I know.”

“You can get to know the real Stanford now. He’ll...he’ll be glad to see ya.”

Sherman makes some kind of strangled, frustrated noise. “I’ll be glad to see him too, but—I thought you were  _ dead _ . I haven't seen you, really seen  _ you _ since—” he inhales sharply. “Fuck, it's been fifty some-odd years. I'm sorry Lee. I'm so sorry.”

Stan sits heavily at the kitchen table. His eyes are misting over rather uncomfortably, and he's far too aware that Soos or the kids or even Ford could come waltzing through the room at any second. He doesn't want to be caught crying at the kitchen table, in his underwear, in the middle of the day.

“I'm sorry I left you and Ford at home. I didn't know what else to do.” Desperation is creeping into his voice, and Stan wants so badly to climb through the phone and give him a hug. “I couldn't convince Ma to come with me, I couldn't kidnap the two of you...I’m sorry. You deserved so much better.”

Stan chuckles. It comes out as some kind of globby, tearful noise instead. “Ya big idiot, you already told me all that.”

“Yeah, at your  _ funeral _ , when I thought you were  _ Stanford _ .” The edge of frustration is returning, but there’s equal parts mirth mixed into it.

Man, what a fucked up family this is.

“Stanley,” he says again. He makes the name sound like—like some remarkable thing instead of just what it is, a name _.  _ He says it how you're supposed to say the word  _ love _ . 

It makes Stan feel like he really did come back from the dead.

Sherm took a deep breath and plunged onward. “Alright well, I'm not hangin’ up until you tell me how you did it.”

So he tells the story. He starts it from the moment he got that fateful postcard to where he sits now—thirty years, three journals, and one functional portal later.

“Why didn't you tell anyone?”

Stan snorts. “Would you have believed me? Would  _ Pa _ have believed me? Or would he just have accused me of murdering his golden child?”

A silence answers the question. No, they wouldn't have believed him.

“Shit, we gotta tell Ma! Stanley, we gotta let her know you aren't dead!”

Stan lets out a low chuckle. “Oh, she knows. You and Pa might’a bought that finger-removal-surgery schtick, but she didn't believe it for a second. She never knew exactly what happened to Ford, or where he was, but she knows he's back now and that's what matters, right?”

“Right,” Sherm agrees gently. “But, wait. Wait wait wait. You're tellin’ me that you kept this charade up for thirty goddamn years, and within twenty-four hours of getting Ford back, a twelve year old unravels the whole thing?”

“Yeah, and I'm gonna have a talk with that little gremlin. I didn't realize snail mail was an abusable privilege.”

Sherman lets out a hearty laugh on the other end of the phone, and Stan can't help but join in. At least he’s got one brother in his corner.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the world is falling apart, and Stan can't find his kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello this chapter is sad, ur welcome :^)

It's day three of Weirdmageddon, and Stan can't find anyone.

Well, not exactly. He finds a whole hell of a lot of people, just not the ones he's looking for. Not his brother, not Dipper, not Mabel. He can't find any of them anywhere and he knows, deep down, that he should be panicking, but he ran out of energy for that after day one when he found the remains of Ford’s huge space gun amid rubble in the town square. He furiously dug through the bricks for hours, more and more convinced with every passing second that he would find the body of someone he loved beneath it all. Sometimes the imagination is much, much worse than reality. 

At the end of day three, he comes home empty-handed again. Sure, he has a sack of first aid supplies he raided from the pharmacy in town and a few townsfolk stumbling through the doorway behind him, but he doesn't have what he needs. The gnomes stop him on his way to his room, where he plans to hide until dawn when it's safe to start his search anew, and they offer him a sash that says “CHIEF” in big, blocky letters. He almost laughs—almost.

“Apparently nobody wants to be our queen” —a glare is shot in the direction of the Northwest brat— “so you can be in charge for now.”

It looks like the “Our Hero” sash Mabel made him. As soon as he can, he slips away from all the chaos, locks his bedroom door and holds the lumpy knitted sash to his face. The knit smells like Mabel—the peppermints she keeps in her knitting bag and the soap she uses to wash and block her finished pieces. He tries to tell himself that she’s out there, probably holed up with Dipper and Ford, _safe_. But the sun is setting on day three and now he's running out of fear, too. The numbness of resignation and grief are settling in, the reality that he failed, and his kids are lost forever.

He wants to go to Bill, march right up to that stupid-ass pyramid hovering above the town and fist fight the demon. Mcgucket has stopped him from doing so more than once. He, perhaps even more than Stan, knows how dangerous Bill is. 

Even if he miraculously succeeded, what would be the point? Without Mabel and Dipper, the victory would be hollow at best. 

Stan takes his glasses off and lays down on his bed, fully clothed, with the sash held close. He's just a useless old man who can't even protect a couple’a kids. A wrinkly husk of a person too weak to seek the truth. 

Some hero he turned out to be.

* * *

“What do we do? What do we do!” 

Ford screams after the kids, as if that’s going to bring them back here. They’re trapped in a cage together, and the kids have just disappeared, and the most nightmarish thing Stan has ever seen is chasing them. To turn them into corpses. He's glad they don't heed Ford’s cries because if they turn around now—

His whole body is shaking. “The kids are gonna die and it’s all my fault! Just ‘cause I couldn’t shake your stupid hand!” His knees give out and hit the ground with a hard  _ crack _ , but he doesn’t even feel it. He puts a hand over his face, where tears are gathering behind his glasses. “Pa was right about me. I  _ am _ a screw up.”

“Ahh, don’t blame yourself.” Ford’s tone doesn’t betray the horror of the situation, or the deep, dark void opening in Stan’s chest and threatening to swallow him. He never was very good at expressing himself. “I’m the one who made a deal with Bill in the first place. I fell for all his easy flattery; you would have seen him for the scam artist he is.”

Then Ford pulls a flask out of his jacket (when did he pick up drinking? Fuck, it’s been forty years since he really knew his brother) and passes it to him. Stan knows whiskey isn’t going to save the kids, or his brother, or the world, but fuck if he isn’t going to try to take the edge off this failure, too. 

“How did things get so messed up between us?” He asks, looking down into the flask.

“We used to be like Dipper and Mabel,” Ford says. Agreeing without actually agreeing. Some things about him haven’t changed at all. “The world’s about to end and they  _ still _ work together. How do they do it?”

Stan looks up, and realizes that even if his voice doesn’t show it, Ford’s devastated. His face is drawn and pinched, and  _ tired _ . He looks how Stan feels. “Easy. They’re kids. They don’t know any better.”

Ford turns away suddenly and stands.

Stan lurches forward and grabs him by the sleeve of his coat. “Whoa, where you goin’?”

“I’m gonna play the only card we have left. Let Bill into my mind.” Ford looks down and meets his eyes again, and determination has replaced the sorrow. “He’ll be able to take over this dimension, maybe even worse, but at least he  _ might _ let the kids free.”

Stan jumps to his feet, flask falling forgotten by the wayside. “What! Are you kidding me? Are you honestly telling me there’s nothing else we can do?”

“Bill’s only week in the mind space!” he shouts back. “If I didn’t have this damn plate in my head, we could just erase him with the memory gun when he steps inside my mind.”

“What...what if he goes into  _ my _ mind? My brain isn’t good for anything.”

Ford laughs, and it surprises him when it’s gentle and sorrowful instead of mocking. “There’s nothing in your mind he wants. It has to be me. We need to take his deal--it’s the only way he’ll agree to save you and the kids.” He tries to move away again, break eye contact, but Stan can see how he leans into the bars for support and his entire body is shaking with--exhaustion? Fear?

He joins him at the bars and grips ‘em tight so Ford can’t see  _ his _ hands shaking. “Do you  _ really _ think he’s gonna make good on that deal?”

“What other choice do we have?”

Stan looks down at his hands; this time he’s the one who can’t meet his brother’s eye. “If...if you think he’ll do it...I might have an idea.” He forces himself to meet Ford’s gaze. “Let’s swap places.”

For all his genius, Ford has to process the idea a moment before realization, accompanied by a stormcloud of anger, comes over his face. “No. When he realizes you’re not me, and he  _ will  _ notice, he’ll kill you immediately. I at least have a chance of fighting him off in the mindscape. I can stall him, make the equation harder to find. It’ll at least make enough time for you and the kids to get out of here.”

“Dammit, Ford! Listen to me, for once in your life! I’ve worked for thirty years to get you out of that portal, I’m not gonna let this triangular motherfucker kill you now! Or the kids!”

“Stanley--”

“No!” He lets go of the bars and grabs Ford by the coat, shaking him silent. “Listen to me!” He knows he sounds on the verge of hysteria, and he can see the alarm and confusion in Ford’s eyes, but he doesn’t care. He can hear Bill’s voice, dissonant and taunting. There isn’t enough time. “I fooled Sherman, Pa, even fooled Ma for a few hours, all into thinkin’ I was  _ you _ . I might not be a genius, but I am a con artist. A damn good one. If you give me a chance, I can fool him. Just give me a chance.”

Ford is silent for a moment, but only a moment, because he also is all too aware that they don’t have much time. “Stanley, has it occurred to you that I don’t want  _ you _ to die either?”

Alright, that throws him a little. 

Ford’s six-fingered hands close over Stan’s, where he’s still clinging to his jacket. “Those kids...they clearly love you very much.”

“That’s why I wanna save ‘em.” His voice comes out much quieter than he meant it to. “‘Sides, it won’t kill me, not really. C’mon Sixer,  _ please,  _ let me do this. Not for you, or the greater good or somethin’, just for those kids.”

“This is  _ my  _ fight.”

“The second he touched those kids, it was mine too.” Ford’s chin drops to his chest, and that’s how Stan knows he’s won. “C’mon, we gotta switch up quick. Let’s go.” 

Stan shrugs his jacket off and drapes it across one of the bars, then his shirt, his shoes, his pants. He’s standing in his boxers before Ford’s even taken his coat off.

“Come on, Stanford, we gotta hurry. You need me to turn around or somethin’? Geez.”

Ford, to his surprise, mumbles out a yes. Again, they don’t have enough time to unpack all that, so Stan just turns his back. When Ford’s sweater drops heavy on his shoulder, he plucks it up and pulls it over his head. In the moment before he tugs his head through the turtleneck, he smells acrid, burnt flesh, smoke, and sweat. His stomach churns and threatens to make his canned Brown Meat breakfast reappear, so he holds his breath until he gets it on properly.

He's going to enjoy sending this geometric abomination to hell. He hopes that if he remembers nothing else when this is over, he forces his brother into professional medical care. Possibly psychiatric care too.

Aw hell, who’s he kidding. Psychiatric care  _ for sure _ . 

When he turns around, Stanford is fumbling with the buttons on his dress shirt. Stan gently pushes his brothers shaking fingers away and swiftly finishes the job. The shirt is almost laughably big on him, and he’s tightened the belt to the very last setting. Stan buttons the jacket for him, and crams the fez down over his wild hair. Ford straightens then holster strap across his chest and folds down the turtleneck just so.

“You're gonna hafta sell it,” Stan says. His hands are lingering at the lapels of his suit, which used to be Ford’s, and has now found its rightful body again. “I've got forty years of smokin’ on ya, so give it that gravel. And uh, tell the kids I love ‘em, would ya? I—I don't tell ‘em often enough, I guess it's just…how we were raised…”

Ford takes off his special-made leather gloves, finally, and puts his hands on top of Stan’s. Ford’s eyes are welling up with tears and Stan’s resolutely trying to ignore it. He can't do this if he’s all choked up. “I love you Stanley. I'm sorry.”

His lip wibbles, so he bites down on it. “Aw, don't go getting all soft on me now.”

A tear streams down Ford’s cheek, and Stan has to turn away. He tears his hands away from his brother and takes a deep breath past the lump in his throat, past the tears burning his eyes.  _ He can't do this if he’s all choked up. _

Ford touches his arm gently, like a warning that he’s coming, then puts the gloves on Stan's hands. He’s put something in the sixth fingers to fill them out. Stan remembers doing the same thing, a very long time ago. Thirty years ago.

Stan looks up to meet Ford’s eyes. That one brown eyed gaze between brothers says more in feeling than either of them know how to say in words. It says  _ I'm sorry _ and  _ thank you _ and  _ I love you _ and  _ I wish there was another way _ and  _ I'll miss you _ and hundreds of other sentence fragments they've been cataloguing in the back of their minds for decades. Earth shaking steps are coming closer now, Bill has stopped shrieking. He has the kids, and they’re out of time.

Stan reaches for Ford’s glasses, pausing when he flinches, and removes them gently. He replaces them with his own thick frames and despite everything, he can't help his little smile. 

“There. God himself couldn't tell us apart, Poindexter. Everything’s gonna work out just fine.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again. His voice cracks and it's too small, it isn't his brother’s voice. It's the voice of a little boy who didn't know Bill, and didn't know terror, and didn't know pain because Stan stood between him and all the school bullies. 

Stan can only give him a solid pat on the shoulder and repeat himself. “It’s all gonna work out.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kinda pissed off at this story right now but I didn't wanna leave you guys hanging either, so have this peace offering. Also I'm getting my wisdom teeth out on Friday sooo I'm not sure when the next update will be after that. Sorry 😬

He feels vaguely like he's trying to swim to the surface of a pool, except the pool is filled with gelatin and he might be twenty feet deep. Every time he makes a little bit of motion, the viscosity of everything around him stops him stiff. 

The gelatin is pink like the scrapbook in his lap and the girl's sweater. His feelings are as confusing as this guy’s sixth finger, and he feels how this boy-kid looks, which is bone-deep, overcooked, absolute  _ exhaustion _ .

“Mabel,” he blurts out. He remembers her name and speaks it as if letting it out will somehow solidify it in his head. 

For some reason, he expects her to let out an ear-piercing shriek, but she just looks up at him with tears in his eyes, calls him “Grunkle” again (is that even a word?) and buries her face in his neck.

Things are fading in and out faster than he has any time to collect them. A pig, a kid, a shape, a brother, a kid, a basement, a kid, a forest, a car, a jail cell, a kid, a kid, a kid. These kids keep coming back—he  _ feels _ something for them, like they're waiting for him at the top of that pool, but he's still stuck in the bottom and swimming in gelatin just isn't as much fun as it sounded when he was a kid and his Ma floated pineapple in creamy green colored stuff at that one Christmas party at school that one time he begged her to go. 

It's everything at once and in the very same second, it's nothing at all. When he opens his mouth to say a name, it comes out reliably, but he can't form the sound of it in his mind. It's like his tongue remembers, but he can't get it to share secrets with his brain.

It’s dizzying.

“Children, let’s give him some room,” the six-fingered guy says, pulling Mabel and Daniel(?) away. All three of their faces look worried again, and he only realizes in that moment that his fingers are pressed to his temple and he’s let out a low moan.

Six-fingers crouches in front of him. “Stanley, take it slow. Trying to remember everything at once is a futile strain.”

He grumbles noncommittally. The beams of warm sunset light that had been streaming into the room are now fading, and crickets are beginning to sing outside. It feels remarkably, unusually normal. This house—his house?—is never this quiet, not since before Dipper and Ma—ma...marble? Maple? Fuck, shit, damn, why can't he remember their names they're his family he can't remember and  _ he knows he loves them and now they look so worried and oh god they don't deserve this _ —

“Stanley, take a breath!” 

He swings his hand away from his face into an open-handed, exasperated gesture. “Could ya quit yellin’ at me Sixer? My head’s  _ killin’  _ me.”

He blinks and goes completely still. His hand reaches out and clutches Stan’s knee as he sways where he’s knelt, and the kids— _ Mabel and Dipper Mabel and Dipper Mabel and Dipper _ —call him Grunkle too. But the two men have locked gazes as one remembers he has a brother and the other wishes, hopes, prays he didn't kill his brother. 

“I remember,” Stan gasps. He grabs the other man’s wrist and pushes the sweater sleeve up. A ring of raw, red blisters and open wounds is revealed and both of them hiss—one in pain, the other in sympathy.

_ If I remember nothin’ else, I gotta remember to get him checked out. Physically and mentally. _

“You were hurt.”

Stanford— _ my brother, my brother, my brother, I fixed it, I brought him back _ —pulls away and holds his wrist to his chest, but it’s too late. The kids saw it, and they’re on him like white on rice.

Nobody sleeps until midnight once the first aid kit comes out and wounds start being uncovered, it’s loud and bloody and it’s more than two twelve year olds should have to bear, but it’s also warm and laughter and telling Stan stories until he begins to fill in the blanks for himself, and getting him with updog while they have this narrow window of a chance.

And when they wake up in the morning and he still remembers everyone’s name, they call him Grunkle again and this time he says “good one, kid”, and maybe everything will be okay.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Concept: the Stan bros talk about fuck.

By the time Shermie calls, the sun has long gone down. Stan nearly leaps out of his chair to answer it. Logically, he knew the kids would get home safely, but you've got to forgive a little paranoia from a man who just survived the apocalypse. Stan cradles the phone to his cheek for his brother’s quick message of ‘I have the children and also some regrets’ while Mabel spazzes out in the background. As the one who personally loaded her backpack full of ‘emergency road trip candy’, Stan knows exactly how much the child is spinning out. He knows she ate all of it, save the bits Dipper would have munched on, and he has absolutely no regrets. He's contemplating buying her a drum kit or bass guitar for Christmas. Being a Grunkle has opened up a whole new world of evil for him.

“You're diabolical,” Ford says to the grin on his face.

“Is that Ford?” Shermie asks. It’s nice to hear the name and not flinch instinctively. It’s nice to hear his  _ own _ name from his brother’s mouth, it's nice to have his other brother back, all of it is so nice. He wishes he could live forever in the warmth that these little moments make.

“Sure is. Here, give him hell.”

Ford takes the phone and sits down at the table beside Stan. “Hello Sherman.”

Even sitting a foot away from him, Stan hears Shermie's choked-up “ _ Stanford _ , you son of a bitch, what did you get yourself into?”

Ford’s expression is something between amusement and fear. Apparently he remembers Sherman’s relentless noogies and wrestling holds just as well as Stan. “That's a story for another day. You have the children safely?”

“Yep, Marlene’s gettin’ them all packed into the car right now. Hey, the kids said something about you two sailing off into the sunset. You gonna come visit your big brother before you do that?”

The twins looked between each other. Stan shrugs and Ford mirrors it. 

“Of course.”

“Great!” His excitement is genuine and infectious. Ford begins to see where Mabel gets that boundless energy from. “We’ll work out details later. Don’t be strangers, you two.”

“Alright,” Ford laughs.

They exchange goodbyes and Stan hangs the phone back on the receiver. 

“You, ah, seem to remember Sherman alright.”

Stan sits back down and squints aimlessly at the table. “Yeah, can’t quite place his face though. Heh, I’m sure he looks just like us anyway.” He laughs it off.

There’s been an elephant in the room in the last several days since Stan had his memory wiped. At first, he couldn’t remember anything about Ford except the few encounters they had (and Mabel had documented) over this Summer. Gradually he remembered more and more, especially when Dipper brought the journals to them. Their childhood is still fuzzy to him, and he can see the hurt play across his brother’s face every time Ford remembers something Stan doesn’t. Ford keeps telling him he isn't angry, and it isn’t Stan’s fault, and he’s so sorry, so sorry, so sorry please forgive me. Stan’s getting a little tired of the apologies, but he can’t lie--the hugs that usually come with them are fantastic.

Ford is looking at the table too, but his gaze is more unfocused, like he's somewhere else altogether. And knowing Stanford, he probably is. That brain is so big, he can get lost in it.

Stan bumps him with his elbow. “Hey, don’t get all sad about it. Sherm’s been around a lot more.”

A beat of silence passes where the two of them just stare at each other, and then Stan smacks his forehead so audibly that  _ Ford _ flinches. 

“Fuck, Ford, that’s not what I meant to say. It’s my fault you weren’t here anyway--”

Ford reaches out and puts his hand on Stan’s knee, smiling. “Let’s not play the fault game tonight, okay? I know what you meant.”

Stan sighs, shoulders slumping. 

“I’m glad you had him. For lack of better wording, I’m glad you’re willing to... _ share _ him.”

Stan barked a laugh. “He’s your brother too, knucklehead.”

“No, I mean it. The children…” He sighs and stares off again. This, Stanley remembers. This is the thought-gathering required for any conversation more serious than basic chemistry. “I can’t tell you how much it means that you three assimilated me. I realize now that I haven’t really felt like part of a family since...well, childhood. I'm sorry I ever put them in danger.”

“Hey, I thought we weren't playing the blame game,” Stan says joke-sternly.

Ford laughs, then his serious tone returns. “Will you be alright without the kids?”

“Pssht, of course. Lived thirty years without ‘em, didn't I?” He casts his gaze down. “Heh, sure gonna miss the little boogers though.”

“Me too.”

Stan gets up and pushes the chair in to the table. “Ya know, there are some things you just can't do with kids in the house though.”

Ford’s face blanches. “You--you mean--”

Stan frowns, then gets the gist. “Oh gross, Stanford! Get yer mind out of the gutter. You think this has seen any action in the last thirty years?” He gestures to his gut, and both of them laugh off the awkwardness. “No, I missed  _ swearing. _ ”

“So, fuck in another sense.”

Stan’s head whips down to look at his brother, who’s beaming at his own terrible attempt at a joke. “Shit, Sixer, that was actually funny.”

The brothers meant to go to bed, they really did, but they talked until the sun came up instead. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally back at home after the summer of a lifetime, Dipper and Mabel ask some hard questions.

"Dipper, who do you think loves us more, Mom and Dad or Grunkle Stan?" Mabel asks the question quietly, even though the bedroom door is shut. 

Dipper, on his bed across the room, taps his pen to his lower lip while he thinks the question through. "Well, Mom and Dad  _ say _ that they love us more often than Grunkle Stan."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

Mabel and Dipper, who grew maybe too used to each other's company over the summer, asked their parents the moment they got back from Grampa Shermie's if they could move Mabel's bed into Dipper's room. They had decided on the bus home that this was the best action to take, as Mabel could still have her girl space, and Dipper didn't mind a little glitter on his things, anyway. Besides, he didn't tell her, but he secretly hoped having her around would motivate him to clean more. He liked how the attic never got smelly like his room back home.

Their parents said no. They were teenagers now, too old to share rooms. But when the nightmares became too much, the twins began taking turns sleeping on each other's bedroom floors in a sleeping bag. Then their parents got the hint. Mabel's bed now stands where Dipper's bookshelves used to be, and vice versa. Slowly, the room is becoming  _ theirs _ rather than just  _ his _ . And he's really, really glad. 

The late summer crickets are still chirping outside the window and while it used to annoy Mabel, now she finds it comforting. If she closes her eyes and imagines very hard, she can pretend she's still in Gravity Falls, and tomorrow holds another adventure instead of another math test. Dipper's pen clicks a few times, only adding to the ambiance. Mabel smiles, but it falls quickly. 

"It  _ feels _ like Grunkle Stan loves us more.” She hugs her stuffed Waddles to her side, since Real Waddles has to sleep in a dog kennel in the garage. He doesn't mind it, but Mabel misses her roly-poly-piggy-boy.

Dipper sighs. Clicks his pen. Closes his book. "Yeah. It does sometimes. But...we haven't known Grunkle Stan as long as Mom and Dad! And—and he's an uncle. He doesn't have to discipline us like Mom and Dad."

A giggle bubbles out of Mabel. "We got away with so much junk."

"So, so much."

"But he did have a lot on his plate," she says, grave seriousness returned. "With the portal, and Grunkle Ford, and pretending to  _ be _ Grunkle Ford, and running the Mystery Shack..."

"Exactly. He's too busy to take care of us."

"...Right."

Dipper lays down and pulls the covers up over himself. He and Mabel were supposed to be asleep an hour ago, but they were often too wired to sleep these days. Either nightmares or missing their Grunkles or trying to get back into the routine of school kept them awake longer than their parents knew.

Under his pillow, Dipper wraps his fingers around a photograph. He doesn't pull it out to look—he doesn't need to. It's one from their fishing trip at the beginning of Summer. Stan has a kid on either side of him, squeezing them so tight that it looks like their heads are gonna pop off. It isn't such a good picture of Dipper or Mabel, which is why Grunkle Stan didn't keep it for himself, but it’s a great picture of Stan, which is exactly why Dipper chose it. He isn't about to admit it to Mabel, but he misses Stan a lot too. Way more than he missed Mom and Dad while they were gone.

"Mabel?"

She slurs a "Hrrng?" which reminds Dipper to be jealous of how quickly she's able to fall asleep.

"What if Grunkle Stan _did_ love us more?"

"Psssht." She takes a pause to yawn. "He totally does."

Dipper curls into himself just a little tighter. That's exactly what he was afraid of.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford thinks of the children and how they came to mean so much to him so quickly, while in Piedmont Mabel is upset to miss a sleepover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The wisdom teeth are GONE, friends!! It's such a relief, I've been dealing with this for a month now and now, all I have left is healing. Unfortunately since it is, like, really painful, I'm on the good kush that makes writing coherently a little bit impossible. Pls accept my offering of this chapter I already had written

Ford can’t remember what Fiddleford’s average KPS (knee-bounce per second) was anymore—thirty years dimension-jumping and getting his brains scrambled by a demon made those little details a bit fuzzy—but he’s sure that Stan is exceeding F’s record right now. They’re on the bus, because apparently _someone_ got himself on a no-fly list, and Stan just hasn’t stopped moving the whole time. Ford is well aware that his brother should have been diagnosed with ADHD basically from birth, but this is just outrageous.

Ford’s hand shoots out almost of his own accord, stilling Stan’s knee. Stan takes his headphones off and sends a confused glare at his brother.

“Stanley, I swear to Cthulhu, if you don’t stop bouncing, I will sedate you.”

A grin breaks out on his face to replace the glare, headphones now abandoned around his neck. “Aw, quit bein’ so uptight. I know you’re excited to see them too.”

Ford withdraws his hand and smiles. Stanley’s ear-to-ear grin is as infectious now as it was forty years ago. “I am, but I’m also _still_.”

“The argument could be made that we’re on a bus, movin’ somethin’ like seventy miles an hour…”

“You're incorrigible.”

“I don’t know what that means, so I’m going to take it as a compliment.”

Ford’s brow wrinkles, appalled. “Is that how you live your life?”

He folds his arms behind his head and closes his eyes in the dim bus. “Yep. You should try it sometime, Debbie Downer.”

He opens his mouth to reply in a myriad of ways--he could point out how much sense it makes that so many people wanted to kill Stan, he could complain about being called a Debbie Downer, he could accuse his brother of acting like an actual ten year old--but he closes his mouth instead. Stan’s comfy already, with that little half-smile he wears when he’s picking fights. “Your teasing will be better spent on the children, Stanley. I refuse to stoop to your level.”

Stan opens one eye, smile not even flickering. “Uh-huh. Whatever you gotta tell yourself to sleep at night, Debbie.”

The leaves are at the peak of their autumn splendor back in Oregon, where it gets colder so much faster. Along the highway here, they’re just beginning to change. Stanford won’t admit it to his brother, at least not yet, but he’ll miss the shack they’re leaving behind. They won’t see it again until they make port next April if all goes according to plan. But first, it’s a stop in Piedmont to see their family. Though _his_ knee isn't attempting to break the sound barrier, Ford is also ecstatic about the visit. They had expected to miss Mabel and Dipper’s loud, inquisitive, glittery presence in the shack, but they couldn’t have predicted just how much. Soos and his grandmother didn’t even begin to fill that crater in their hearts--or, at least not Ford’s. The more he learns about their history, he has a sneaking suspicion Stan’s relationship to Soos might be more meaningful than he’ll ever let on, even to the poor kid.

And it isn’t only the kids he has to look forward to; he’s going to see Sherman for the first time since he graduated with his PhD! He’ll see his sister-in-law Marlene, who was only Sherman’s fiancé when he first met her, and get to meet their children too. He almost wishes they could stay in Piedmont longer, but the _Stan O’War II_ is ready to go in the San Francisco Bay, and the adventure of a lifetime is singing its siren song.

Still, the most exciting part of this trip is the fact that Mabel and Dipper don’t have a clue they’re coming.

* * *

Another weekend, another sleepover.

Mabel kicks her feet against the backpack in front of her, squished between the passenger seat in front of her and her knees. It’s full to the brim with study packets and homework, and the big bag of chips she was going to take to the big homecoming slumber party she was _supposed_ to go to this weekend. Instead, her parents are in the front seat and Dipper’s beside her in the back, and they’re driving to Grampa Shermie's again. Maybe it’s just hard to remember what life was like before this Summer, sometimes it really does feel that way, but Mabel thinks they’ve been spending even more time at Grampa and Gramma’s than they used to.

It doesn’t feel _fair_ . Her parents never ever wanted to have family time, why should she have to miss her slumber party just because they suddenly feel the need to _bond_? She gives her backpack one more solid kick, and Mom turns in her seat to tell her to stop.

Dipper isn’t angry. He has a new mystery book that Grunkle Ford sent in the mail last week (he discovered Amazon Prime right after they left, and he’s been going absolutely insane with it) and he isn't missing the party of the year. Or, the first semester. Whatever. She clutches her stuffed Bigfoot (pink, fluffy, definitely another of Grunkle Ford’s choices) to her chest and lets her best grumpy face stew there. 

They don’t get to Gramma and Grampa’s until after dark. Mabel can’t help but let her frown slip a little bit as Dad parks on the curb. The house is lit up inside all warm and cozy, the lawn is trimmed neat, and the shutters are the same pale blue as Mabel and Gramma had painted them last Summer, with little white daisies. Her grandparent’s home is her second home, she can’t help but feel a little more okay when she sees it. Dipper practically throws aside his book and little light to run across the lawn and inside. Mabel, determined to pout, takes her sweet time.

And then Dipper screams.

Her heart drops out of her chest and her blood runs cold in the same instant. Instinct and panic kick in, and she’s through the front door before she can register that she’s moving. But Dipper isn’t hurt or in trouble or anything, he’s--

He’s--

“GRUNKLES!” She shrieks. She drops her things in the doorway and runs into the open arms waiting for her, jumping into the cuddle puddle on the hallway floor. Grunkle Stan is giving out noogies and Dipper is laughing hoarsely, and Grunkle Ford’s scruff is rubbing up against her cheek. It’s warm and it smells like Pine soap and Grunkle Stan’s weird old man cologne and that dusty old book smell that Grunkle Ford carries. Grunkle Stan groans, then erupts in new laughter as Dipper hugs too aggressively and pushes him over on his old man butt. And all four of them might be crying a little bit, because it’s been a long six weeks full of bad school and bad dreams and late night video calls and two sets of twins missing each other, okay?

Gramma snaps a picture. “Scrapbookortunity!”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS SO OVERDUE, I'M SO SORRY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI GUYS. So you know how I said I was getting my wisdom teeth removes, and then I was going to Florida, and I would try to keep you updated? Yeah I did no such thing I'm so sorry. I also have zero more content after this chapter that I literally just finished, so I don't know when the next one will be out TT-TT thank you for reading even though I am an Actual Hot Mess!

It takes a few minutes and a lot of cracking joints to get the older twins off the floor. Mabel and Dipper tug at their Grunkles’ stout arms and eventually get them up, with no small amount of giggling. By the time they’re on their feet, the younger twins’ parents have caught up.

“Ford,” Stan puts his hand on his brother’s shoulder and pulls him forward. “This is Aaron, your nephew, and his wife Stacy.”

Stan steps forward and throws an arm around Aaron, giving him a hug and a solid pat on the back. He doesn’t hug Stacy, their mother, because he knows she doesn’t like that. He just shakes her hand with both of his, and tells her with a grin how very nice it is to see them.

Ford’s smile is bright as the sun. “Yes, it’s so good to meet you. I must say, your children are so absolutely incredible. I enjoyed getting to know them this Summer.”

“Ah, don’t be so formal Poindexter. This is family!” He slaps his brother’s shoulder, then refocuses his attention on Dipper and Mabel. “Lead the way to couches, my butt’s tired.” 

Mabel laughs like a fountain bubbling over. Her glee just can’t be contained in her tiny body.

“Are you guys even gonna survive on a boat all alone?” Dipper asks, holding Grunkle Stan’s hand and tugging him along. He’s teasing, but there’s real concern to the question, too.

“Yeah! You guys are like, eighty. You need some lovely assistants.”

Stan groans as he sinks into what he  _ knows _ is Sherman’s favorite armchair, then points to Mabel. “Kid, I like the way you think.”

“You’re off by about twenty years, dear, and we’ll be fine,” Grunkle Ford insists. “Trust me, Stanley has planned for every eventuality.” He mumbles something under his breath about doomsday prepping that neither of the younger twins quite catch, and they wouldn't comment on that anyway. After seeing an actual doomsday, nobody’s gonna complain about Grunkle Stan’s  _ Brown Meat  _ stash ever again.

Gramma and Grampa are close behind. Sherman doesn't give Stan the satisfaction of caring that his seat is taken, he just sits on the couch and scoops Mabel up into his lap. Checkmate.

She cuddles right down into her grandpa, taking solace in his warm, familiar comfort. The Grunkles are great, of course, but Grampa Shermie’s been the only mainstay in the twins’ lives since they were just babies. Mabel has thought extensively on the subject of all the things dads are supposed to do, like walking their daughter down the aisle and taking them to father daughter dances and scaring her first boyfriend, and she’s decided she wants Grampa Shermie to do all of it instead of her dad. Maybe it's time to see about a whole father figure procession down the aisle, Stan and Ford now included.

“Trust me Mabs, your grunkles know how to get in and out of trouble like no one else. They’ll be just fine.”

“ _ Thank you _ ,” Stan says. “At least someone has some faith in me.” Almost absently, Stan reaches out toward Dipper, still standing nearby. Dipper ducks his head shyly, but he lets Grunkle Stan scoop him up into his lap all the same. It's not very grown-up of him, but he's starting to think maybe Mabel has a point—growing up isn't really all that. 

As Stan gives him a tight squeeze, Dipper feels himself relax in a way that he hasn't in weeks. Until this moment, he hadn't realized how much tension he’s been holding onto. The only time he’s ever really relaxed is when he’s been here at Grampa’s, and now with Stan’s arms around him. He closes his eyes and leans into the embrace, savoring the peace.

The eight of them play board games, laughing and shouting and eating Mabel’s entire party size bag of chips, until Dipper’s eyelids start to droop and Stan looks like he's going to faceplant into the table at any second. The two grunkles watch from the dining room as Aaron and Stacy each kiss their kids on the head and leave. Then Shermie’s right behind them, scooping up one under each arm and hefting them like a sack of potatoes.

“It’s bedtime!” he shouts. 

Marlene clamps her hands over her ears, but smiles fondly nonetheless. Ford feels for her. 

Once the house is locked up and the kids have had a chance to get their overnight bags into their room upstairs, the brothers make their way up as well. 

Sherman’s house has three bedrooms—the master, and two others. One is made up in the themes of space and aliens and sci-fi while the other is cats and yarn and bright colors. For the night, Stan and Ford will sleep in the queen bed of one room, and Dipper and Mabel will sleep in the other. It’s not quite  _ ideal _ , Sherman admits, but it’s only for the night. 

“It’s very kind of Sherman to give the kids their own rooms here,” Ford says. He’s on his knees, digging through his overnight bag for his toothbrush. 

Stan, on the other side of the room examining a stack of Mabel’s drawings, hums a distracted response. “They spend a lotta time here I guess.” He picks up one particularly striking mixed media crayon-and-marker piece. A bright pink Waddles is running across the page with a gnome on his back; the gnome is holding a carrot on a stick out in front of him. He chuckles.

There’s a knock on the open door, to which both brothers look up. Sherman is leaning in the doorway. “Kids are in bed,” he says quietly. “I told ‘em not to wake you in the morning, but they don’t seem to have any intention of letting you sleep.”

“They never did,” Stan says with a chuckle. 

Sherman continues to stand there, arms crossed over his chest and eyes trained on the carpet. The twins share a look.

“What’s up bro?” Stan asks.

He looks up, eyebrows knit and mouth set in a hard line. “Aaron and Stacy didn’t have the kids enrolled in school when they got back. I showed up with 'em on Monday, bright and early, and there was just nothing. They didn’t do the back to school shopping, Mabel only had one pair of shoes that fit her feet  _ and _ the dress code.” He clamps his hands over his face, shaking his head. “It was a mess!”

Stan ushers his brother into the room while Ford closes the door. and closes the door behind him. Ford sits on the bench at Mabel's easel (which is covered in splattered paint and errant marker streaks) while the other two brothers sit on the mattress.

“Is it a money issue?” Stan asks. The three of them are familiar with money being a roadblock to schooling; Stan remembers sharing glasses with Ford in high school and cramming his feet into shoes that didn’t fit. Shermie had surely faced some of the same issues.

“No, no, they’re fine on money. They even had the list! They just don’t  _ care _ . I’m at my wits end with them.”

“What can we do to help?” Ford asks.

Stan smiles, but doesn’t say anything. That’s a new phrase in his brother’s vocabulary, one that he hears a lot, which was put there by Dipper. The kid’s Good Brother 101 lessons were paying off. 

“Keeping them for the summer was more than enough,” he sighs. “Though, is it too much to ask to send them back with a little less PTSD next time? You think you could swing that?”

Ford and Stan instantly duck their heads away from Sherman’s deadpan glare. 

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Stan mutters, hand on the back of his neck. 

“Are they doing alright?” Ford asks. “We talk with them frequently, but you know…”

“They're good liars,” Shermie finishes. “Yeah, they're okay. I'm doing all I can for them, but they won't let me tell their parents what happened.”

Stan frowns deeply, first at Ford and then at his feet. “They ain’t hurting the kids, right?”

Sherman grabs Stan’s knee firmly. “ _ No _ , no. If I suspected anything, I’d call social services on the spot.”

“Good,” he grumbles.

“But…” Ford lets the word hang in the air for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “There’s more than one way to abuse a child, isn’t there?”

The three brothers remain silent for a long while.

Stan breaks first. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

“They’re alright for now. I mean, they always have been, I’ve made sure of that. If anything changes, you’ll be the first to know.” Sherman gives each of his little brothers a smile. “Now, can I do anything for you before Marlene and I hit the hay?”

“No, we’re good. Thanks Sherm.”

He grunts as he gets up to his feet, then ruffles both brothers’ hair at once. “Sleep tight, baby bros.”

* * *

Try as he might, Dipper can’t sleep. Mabel’s fast asleep on the pillow beside her, stuffed animal tucked under her chin.

For a while, Dipper was able to listen to Ford, Stan, and Shermie talking across the hallway. Then their voices quieted, a few doors opened and closed, and the hall light was doused. Then he was all alone in the dark with Mabel and the stars projected on his ceiling. He began cataloguing constellations to keep his mind preoccupied.

Someone began snoring, eventually. His money was on Stan--and oh, how proud would Stan be of that bet? He smiles in the dark. He reminds himself to ask Stan tomorrow about the poker rules he had forgotten. He could have searched them online weeks ago, but it just...wasn’t the same. He wants to see the mischievous light in his Grunkle’s eyes as he teaches him how to swindle his sister out of her candy stashes. He wants to stand beside him, faint smell of weird old man cologne and wood polish filling his senses.

He wanted to go  _ home _ .

Dipper was long over being surprised by the thought. It plagued him day and night for weeks now--that he thought of the Shack as more of a home than his own room in Piedmont, or even his room here at Grampa’s. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly why--it wasn’t as if he didn’t love his parents or grandparents, but they never felt as secure and safe as Stan does now. Is it because they've been through so much together? Is it because Stan let them truly make the attic their space, as tidy or as dirty as they wanted with indoor golf courses and reading all night and posters on the splintering ceiling? He isn’t sure. He can’t get to the bottom of his own feelings, and it’s  _ driving him crazy _ .

Does he just love Stan more? And, if he does, why doesn’t he feel more guilty about it?

Mabel’s breath catches. Dipper lays still in the dark, waiting to see if it will happen again. Sure enough, the next breath is some synthesized, sleepy version of a sob. Mabel’s sleep-crying sounds much different than her awake-crying, and unfortunately Dipper is pretty familiar with both at this point.

“Mabel,” he whispers, slowly bringing his hand down on her shoulder. “Hey, Mabel it’s okay. We’re safe, we’re in bed at Gramma and Grampa’s.”

Her eyes flutter open for a moment, filled with tears, then she tucks herself against Dipper’s side. He puts his hand on her head and lets her breathe unsteadily against his neck for a minute--whatever she needs to know she’s safe, and he’s safe, and they aren’t in a pyramid or a bubble or a gladiatorial arena full of screaming time-convicts.

After a while he whispers, “You okay?”

She nods. “Just a bad dream. Sorry I woke you up, Dips.”

“You didn’t.” He lets his hand fall away from Mabel and turns his face back to the stars on the ceiling. 

“Dipper,” she whines, drawing out the vowels. “You have to sleep sometime.”

“I’m trying, I’m trying.”

The pair of them lays in the dark and listens to the soft ambient sounds of the house. Mabel giggles.

“Is that Grunkle Stan?”

“I think so. He’s so  _ loud _ .” Dipper can’t help but share in the laugh.

“I’m glad they came to see us. I really missed them.”

“Me too. I wish…”

She lifts her head to meet his eyes. “What?”

He falters. “Well, I wish...I wish we were sleeping in the same room as them.” He ducks his chin below the duvet, looking away awkwardly. “It’s dumb.”

“That’s not dumb,” she immediately replies. Her voice is more forceful than Dipper knew she could be while still whispering. “Why don’t we just go get in bed with them?”

“What? Mabel! We can’t do that, they're--they're…”

“They’re what?”

“They're old, and sleepy. We can’t do that.”

Mabel pokes her brother in the cheek, sinking her finger into the baby fat there until she can feel his teeth underneath. “Don’t be dumb-dumb, bro-bro. Come on!”

Before Dipper can do anything to stop her (let’s be real, he knows he can’t stop her), she’s already thrown the covers back and is halfway across the room. Aaand it doesn’t look like she’s gonna wait for him to catch up.

He scrambles out of bed, nearly face-planting when his ankle gets tangled in the sheets. Just as Mabel’s slipping into their Grunkles’ room, he rushes in behind her.

This room is much darker. Both twins pause, waiting for their eyes to adjust. Mabel, of course, is the first to move. She trains her eyes on the floor, and with an unfair familiarity of the room, tip-toes over to the bed.

“Grunkle Stan,” she whispers. 

He lets out a loud snore in reply. 

“Grunkle  _ Staaaan _ .”

“Wha--Mabel?” Stan squints at the face just inches from his own. “What’s wrong, punkin’?”

“Can Dipper and I sleep in here?” 

Stan looks out and around Mabel to see that Dipper is, in fact, awkwardly hovering behind her. “Uhh, I dunno if there’s room.” He looks over at Ford, who’s also cracked his eyes open now.

“Nonsense,” Ford mumbles. Through the gravel of his half-asleep voice, all three of them can barely understand him. He lifts his arm to invite them, and that’s all Mabel needs.

She’s up and over Stan in seconds, maybe having sank a knee in his gut in the process based on the breathless  _ OOF _ he lets out. Ford chuckles as she cozies right into the nook between his side and the wall. 

“Get up here, kid.” Stan pats the space between himself and Ford.

Dipper clambers haltingly into the bed and tries squeezing himself into the space, to no use. Stan squawks as he nearly falls off the bed. He slides one strong arm underneath Dipper and moves the child in one swift motion. Before he knows it, his back is against Ford’s side, and his legs are over Stan’s stomach.

“Everybody comfy?” There’s a general mutter of consent. Stan grunts. “Good, then go the heck to sleep.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so I emotionally wounded myself writing this chapter. That's my official warning.

Stan’s the first to wake up, buried underneath his family and sweating like he’s in a sauna. These little runts generate a lotta heat, geez.

The sun hasn’t quite risen yet. There’s a purple-gray kind of light in the room, only just enough to see by. The shoulder of Dipper’s sleep shirt is soaked with his own drool, Ford’s softly snuffle-snoring like he does, and Mabel is muttering in her sleep. Something about Waddles and glue, which Stan might be concerned about were it a waking thought. Getting the pig and the goat apart when it was just duct tape had been hard enough.

Dipper stirs slightly and makes a small, sad sound. Stan rests his hand on the kid’s stomach, hoping maybe the weight and the warmth will be some comfort. It seems to do the trick, because Dipper doesn’t move again.

Stan smiles to himself as the first rays of light diffuse through the pink curtains. His sleep schedule has never been fantastic, he’ll admit, but he can’t seem to go to sleep and  _ stay asleep _ these days. He wakes up at odd hours of the night or early morning and sometimes it takes him hours to fall asleep again. Other times, he gets out of bed and finds a way to make himself busy. Sometimes he's so panicked when he wakes that he has to put his glasses on and grab the framed picture he keeps on the nightstand. He’ll grip it white-knuckle tight and stare at the photo until his heart slows and he’s sure he hasn’t forgotten again.

It’s a sort of oxymoronic thought, to be worried that he’s forgotten something he remembers. If he's waking up in the dead of the night scrambling to lay eyes on the kids, clearly he remembers them already. But there’s always that one terrifying moment between breaths where he isn't sure he can remember Dipper’s real name, or Mabel’s favorite brand of cereal, or his brother’s laugh. All he knows is hot blue flames and the acrid smell of burnt flesh in a sweater and the screams of those little kids that he would die,  _ is dying  _ to protect. 

Then he sees Mabel’s grin and Dipper’s anxious little smile, and he can hear Ford’s weird spluttering snore just down the hallway, and reality washes over him again. He thought for a while that maybe it was Bill, trying to claw his way back out of the recesses of his mind to drive  _ him _ mad too, but Ford put his fears to rest in the worst way possible: by telling him it was plain old trauma. It made him feel weak and lost and exhausted. 

But on this pink morning, he doesn’t feel any of that. With the weight of Dipper’s legs thrown over his stomach, he didn’t have a single dream last night. His eyes slip closed of their own will, it seems, and he doesn't fight it. A peace like nothing he’s known in weeks settles over him, warming that little empty part of his chest.

Maybe it’s okay to sleep in just this once.

* * *

“Dipper, how would you like to take a walk around the neighborhood? You can point out the local anomalies for me,” Ford says with a teasing grin.

Dipper brightens up immediately and scrambles for his shoes beside the door. “You’re gonna  _ love _ Mrs. Garcia’s chihuahua, I’m ninety percent sure he’s half chupacabra.”

Ford waves to Stan, who’s looked up from his card game with Mabel and Marlene just long enough to see what his brother’s up to. He raises his eyes and points to Dipper, then mouths,  _ talk to him _ .

Ford’s brow furrows. He hadn’t planned on walking in silence, so what did he--

Stan rolls his eyes at great length.  _ About therapy _ , he mouths. 

Ah. Mm. Yes, sure, that’s fine. He gives Stan a resolute nod, shoves his hands in his pockets, and follows an eager Dipper out the front door. 

They get nearly half a block down the street before Ford manages to clear his throat and speak. “So, ah, how’s school?”

Dipper doesn’t look up to answer, just shrugs. “It’s fine I guess. It’s school.”

“I thought you enjoyed learning?”

He wrinkles his nose. “School isn’t learning, it’s rote memorization that fills our heads with government propaganda.”

Ford can only splutter. “Wh-what?” He laughs. “Where in the world did you hear that?”

“The internet.”

Ford shakes his head, clasping his hands behind his back. “Of course. You know, I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading on the internet myself.”

Dipper glances up now, almost concernedly. “What about?”

“Psychology. The field has improved by leaps and bounds since I was last in this dimension--I knew of some things from more developed dimensions and civilizations, but to hear it in earth’s terms is very intriguing. You know, the term PTSD wasn’t coined until 1980, three years before I--ah, left this dimension.”

“That’s what soldiers get,” Dipper says. He says it offhandedly, like it’s a fact that Ford already knows and he’s just adding it in to be conversational.

“Mm, that’s not all. Civilians have PTSD too. In fact, I believe both you and Mabel may be suffering its effects.”

Dipper stops short on the sidewalk, planting his sneakers firmly and staring at Ford. After a moment, he laughs. “Grunkle Ford, you can’t believe everything on the internet y’know.”

“I’m well aware. Dipper, do you know what PTSD stands for?”

“Yeah, post-traumatic stress disorder. Emphasis on the  _ trauma _ , like the soldiers overseas.”

“Oh, you mean like fighting an ancient and all-powerful demon who held various beloved family members’ lives in his hands multiple times over the short period of--say, a week?” Ford pretends to think for a moment. “Yes, I think I would consider that to be trauma.”

“B-but Grunkle Ford! All that stuff was undone, like it never happened. The town is back to normal, and he’s gone--”

“Who?”

Dipper’s expression goes blank, staring wide-eyed up at his Grunkle. “The--the demon.” The next word from his mouth is a raspy whisper. “Bill.”

Ford gestures to the curb and sits. Dipper hesitates, and eventually sits down beside him. He looks hollow eyes and shell-shocked, filling Ford with guilt. He didn’t mean to trigger him, only make him realize and validate his own experience. Dipper flinches when he puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“My dear boy, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Stan and I both have experienced nightmares, rather vivid flashbacks… The human mind is only made to bear so much, and Bill’s weirdness illusions broke every one of those delicately balanced scales. I would be more worried if you  _ weren’t _ bothered by it all.”

Dipper drags a hand over his face--a tired gesture befitting someone much older and much wearier than this child has any right to be. “Mabel and I both have been having nightmares. I--I don’t know when the last time I slept through the night was, Mabel had to move her bed into my room because we can’t stand to be apart--every time I hear a Latin word in school I  _ flinch _ . It’s pathetic, it’s--”

“It’s beyond your control,” Ford says firmly. “And it’s not something you can fix for yourself. Now, Sherman tells me you won’t talk to him--or anyone else, for that matter.”

If possible, Dipper seems to get  _ smaller _ . “It sounds crazy to anyone who wasn't there,” he says quietly. 

“Right again, Dip,” Ford says gently. Dipper responds to the nickname with a bashful smile. “What if I could find you someone who does understand? Someone who was in Gravity Falls when it all happened.”

“Yeah, right. Nobody will talk about it since the “never mind all that” act,” he says, with gratuitous air-quotes.

“Well, I made some phone calls this morning...” 

That was a lie. Stan was the one who had made the calls, unprompted. He came back from a ‘coffee run’ with the number of one psychotherapist in Gravity Falls who had been willing to talk about  _ the event _ with him, and give him a quote for a few teletherapy appointments without insurance. It was a pretty chunk of change, and Stan had apparently been unable to use his ‘town hero’ status to argue her down, but he also acknowledged that he had saved enough over the years to pay cash up-front. It was worth it to be able to conceal the appointments from the childrens’ parents. Stan told him to keep it quiet, don’t tell the kids it was him. But now, faced with lying to Dipper’s face, he just couldn’t do it.

“Stanley did something remarkable this morning, Dipper. He found a therapist in Gravity Falls who was willing to talk about it, never mind all that act and everything. Something about patient-doctor confidentiality. He’s planning to pay for you and Mabel to have several sessions with her, both together and alone. He told me to take credit for the idea--but truly, all the credit goes to him.”

Dipper stares at the pavement for a moment. When he finally meets Ford’s gaze, his eyes are glassy with tears. “Grunkle Stan did that for us?”

“Oh Dipper, Stan would do  _ anything  _ for you.”

He thinks on this statement for a moment, then stands. “Can we go back to the house now?”

“Certainly.”

Dipper’s stride is a little longer, a little more urgent, as they head back to the house. He practically sprints up Sherman’s driveway and throws himself against Stanley on sight. 

Stan laughs, catching him up in his arms even as confusion clouds his features. “Whoa, kiddo, did I miss somethin’?”

Dipper wraps his arms tighter around Stan’s neck, eyes squeezed shut.

Stan looks helplessly to Ford, who takes a sudden interest in the kitchen tile beneath his feet. 

After a long moment, Dipper pulls away and looks Stan dead in the eyes. “I won’t do it unless you will.”

Stan’s face instantly reddens. “What? Kid--I dunno--”

“You know, the talking thing. I won’t do it unless you do.”

Stan’s jaw hangs slack for a moment. “Now, look here, I’m the one who does the haggling in this family.”

“You taught us how to!” Mabel pipes up, standing on her knees in her chair at the card table.

Stan scoffs and looks between the two of them. His little warriors. He shakes his head. “Fine.”

Ford finds himself cheering with Dipper.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Consider checking me out on tumblr at halogalopaghost, where I babble about this AU and many other Stan Pines related things. (And make art!!)


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